Sick (Sam)

[Sam O'Connor]

Sam listened intently to Eva, handling the photographs with care as he looked at each one in turn. It was clear to see that Eva had picked up traits from both of them, physically. Sean had as well. Poor guy. Being killed by an evil double of yourself couldn't have been fun. But Eva was still around. Looking at the photos made him wonder if her parents ever thought about their children as well, maybe even tried to find out where they were or what they were doing. He knew his mother had never come looking, but he sort of hoped maybe Eva's parents did still care for her, wherever they thought she was.

"Yes, yes you did. But not right now." He couldn't really imagine her spinning around gracefully whilst half asleep and a humidifier under her arm. Besides, he was pretty comfortable right now. He chuckled softly when she asked if he could picture her as a suburban housewife. "No, not really. I tell you what though, any children you had would know to behave as soon as you laid your eyes on the knife block in the kitchen," he joked. She would be a fierce mother someday, despite her upbringing and lack of a normal childhood. He reckoned she'd probably strive not to allow her kids to have the same sort of life she'd had while growing up.

Sam laughed, "nope, definitely not changing my mind. Although, hang on..." he trailed off, looking thoughtful for a moment, before looking back at her with a teasing grin. "Kidding." Her next question was much lighter than the first, but he still had to think for a moment on his answer. "Not counting you being here for this Christmas, our first Christmas together," he said, "it was probably the Christmas back when I was thirteen. I'd got into this craze about basketball - I was tall and gangly and loved it - so my Grandpa put up a basketball net in the backyard. Unfortunately, the heavens dumped about a foot of snow Portaferry that year, but it was amusing trying to dribble the ball in the snow."

It was his turn for another question, a lighter one this time. "What's the worst date you've ever been on?" he asked, "if you've ever been on anything close to a date."

[Evangeline Irvine]

"Hardy har har," Eva said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at Sam's quip about any children she might have. In truth, she wasn't sure she'd be a good mother if it ever came to that. She'd probably end up raising children trained exactly like her, or so well protected that they'd never be allowed to leave the house. Wouldn't that just be wonderful? No, motherhood didn't seem to be likely in her future--at least, certainly not anytime soon.

His joke about pretending to rethink his prior comment earned him a mock glare of hurt and a jab to the ribs. However, he redeemed himself with his following answer. Picturing Sam out in the snow, dribbling a basketball, set Eva giggling. As strange an act as that was, she could picture it. "You are one of the only people I know who would try something like that," she laughed. "Though I suppose your grandmother probably wouldn't have appreciated you playing with your basketball inside, would she?"

The question he asked next brought red rushing to her cheeks, and she groaned in embarrassment. "Oh, gods, how can I pick just one? I've gone on a grand total of maybe seven dates, and none of them are what I'd call a good date. Jeez, most of them couldn't even be called sub-par, they were that terrible. The worst though was probably with this guy named Alexander." Sighing, she thought back to that day, her face contorting into an expression of antipathy.

"Alex was this ass in R4 who worked as something akin to a tactical officer. Let's just say that guns were the only thing he could work with--words, not so much. His idea of a 'date' was taking me to the gun range, when he knew that I was already a perfect shot. Then he used it as an excuse to grope me." Rolling her eyes, Eva shoved that memory back to the abyss it had crawled out of.

Well, this was her last question. She'd better make it a good one. "All right... so... What's your idea of 'the perfect woman'?" she asked, her tone coloured with laughter. It was fair enough, considering his last question. If she'd had to relive that memory, he could at least come out and tell her a little about his romantic venues, too.

[Sam O'Connor]

Sam snorted, "no, no, she definitely wouldn't have. That would have earned me a clap around the head and an hour in my room, worse if I'd broken something. Then I would have been sent straight to hell with all the other naughty ornament breaking children." He continued to chuckle as she said she couldn't pick just one date that had been terrible. Oh dear, he'd picked a doozy of a question here. Seven dates? That was much more than he could boast, his total being zero, good ones or bad ones.

The smile dropped from his face as she went on to describe how the date had been, and almost reached a scowl when she said his whole aim had been to cop a feel. "That arsehole," he said, disgusted. He wished he hadn't asked now. "Men like that give us a bad name," he said, "women are real people with real feelings, and doing something like that is rude and wrong," he shook his head. Realising he hadn't voiced an opinion like that with Eva before, he cleared his throat, and looked at her reproachfully, "sorry," he scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, "didn't mean to go off like that." Jerks like that pissed him off.

He fell silent when she asked him what his idea of 'the perfect woman' was. Opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, he let out a sigh, "I don't know, really." He was supposed to be being honest, but the first answer that had popped into his head he dismissed as a silly thought related to the position he was in right now. "I suppose, sharing my sense of humour is a good start, or just understanding it. Having a good laugh. Having a heart," he shrugged his shoulders slightly, "and obviously, if she loved me. That make it... perfect."

Now it was his last question. He was quite for a little while, thinking in silence, aware that if he didn't speak soon, he could very well be hearing the sound of Eva snoring. "After Christmas," he said, "but before the end of the Shore Leave, there's this lake back near my home, in the mountains. I know you said you wanted to see the mountains someday, so, I guess my question is, do you want to go with me there?"

[Evangeline Irvine]

That Sam reacted so strongly to Eva's explanation startled her a little, but in truth, it didn't really surprise her. He'd always been a perfect gentleman; most likely his grandparent's proper and upright influence. That hearing of men treating women like trophies--to be won, fondled, and then set up on a shelf--set him off made sense. Regardless, she rubbed his chest soothingly to help him calm down.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. If it makes you feel any better, I kicked him where he lives and gave him a broken wrist to remember me by," she assured him in a placating tone. "Naturally my superiors weren't happy, but I didn't really care. I think what got them so riled up was the fact that Alex refused to tell them what had happened. Apparently, getting his just desserts from a girl didn't agree with him."

There was a pause after her question, and she wondered briefly if she should ask something else. After all, she didn't want to pry. Despite having met once as kids, they honestly didn't know one another all that well, and even though that was what this little question game was about, that was no excuse to go and dig too deep. But before she could come up with anything, he answered her.

"Finding a woman like that shouldn't be too hard for a guy like you," Eva noted, bumping his leg lightly with hers. "Just let me meet her first, all right? I'm pretty good at deducing whether or not someone is acting genuinely," she snickered, tapping her temple. Telepathy could be a wonderful gift sometimes. At his last comment, she actually pulled back to look at him incredulously.

"You silly man, you," she said with a laugh, bopping his nose. "How could any woman meet you and not love you?" In truth, she was surprised he didn't have women crawling all over him. Or maybe he did? After all, she hadn't seen the rest of the kitchen staff. Rolling her eyes at herself internally, she tuned back in to listen to his final question.

Almost as soon as the words hand left his mouth, her eyes lit up and a slow smile crawled onto her face. "Are you serious?" she asked, blue eyes searching brown for any hint of deceit. They found none. Beaming, she essentially tackled him to the bed as she flung her arms around his neck in happiness. "Yes! I'd love to go! I can't believe you remembered that, after all these years."

After a moment she pulled back, slightly chagrined but still grinning nonetheless. "Sorry. Didn't mean to attack you there. But yes, I definitely want to go with you."

[Sam O'Connor]

Sam looked down as Eva rubbed his chest, it sort of mimicked him rubbing her back earlier, only she had been coughing, whereas he was fuming. It was beyond belief that a man thought that he could do that to a woman. Use her and toss her to one side. "I should think so," he said with a nod, "I hope he was severely emasculated by that kick, to go along with his wounded pride." Guys like that deserved what was coming to them, whether it came from a girl or another guy.

"It's funny," he said, bumping her leg back, "you and Zoe both say that, and yet, I swear all those women are hiding in a bunker somewhere, and will probably never see the light of day." He was only twenty, it was a bit pessimistic of him to believe that he would never find anyone this early in his life, but sometimes it felt that way. Maybe it was because he hadn't actually realised two of the women he cared about the most were right under his nose.

With a laugh, he said, "yes, I'll bring her to you for a good old mind probe before I set the date, don't worry," he smiled, glad to be back onto happier and more jokey topics of conversation. He scrunched up his nose as she bopped it, snickering. "Tell you what, if you find a woman that loves me, please, introduce her to me. Because I would be very interested in meeting her." This assumption that he had hundreds of women at his beck and call was completely ridiculous.

Sam was surprised as he was tackled with joy in answer to his question, but burst into laughter after he got over the initial shock. "Of course I remembered," he said, "I've been waiting to take you to see the mountains for nine years now, I figured it was finally time we got it done." He couldn't have been happier about her reaction. For a brief moment, he worried that she might be unsure, or wonder why he'd asked, but instead he'd been glomped, for want of a better term.

"Oh, attack away, I should be used to it by now," he snorted, considering how much time he spent with Zoe, "great," he beamed, "I can get everything sorted in no time. It'll be good to get off this ship, back to somewhere with humidity above zero percent." It would be quite chilly for this time of year, but they'd survive. The ridiculous grin remained on his face, he didn't seem to be able to shift it, not that he wanted to. He glanced at his watch. "Tell you what, I'll go make that soup, while the kitchen is empty. You think about whatever else you want to do while we're in Northern Ireland, anything else you'd like to see, okay?"

[Evangeline Irvine]

"I may have started off in a bunker, but I came out, didn't I?" Eva pointed out fairly, thinking back to when they'd first been reunited. "Who's to say you couldn't coax out others?" Snorting, she tacked on, "You could always set a plate of your cookies in front of the door. If the smell of them alone didn't get those girls out, absolutely nothing would--except maybe your telekinesis, but that would be a tad extreme, no?"

When he agreed to bring any girlfriend of his to meet her first, she grinned and nodded. "Good, good. Wouldn't want to find out too late that she was some mass murderer with a split personality or something." She smirked a little when his nose wrinkled under her touch, but at his words the smirk fell into a small, disbelieving smile. "Sam, really, how can you be so oblivious? One of these days, you'll see what Zoe and I mean."

Of course I remembered. Those four words alone made her beam again. This was why any girl would be lucky to have him--he paid attention to the small things, and he made you feel special, simply by being himself. "You really shouldn't have given me that freebie," she laughed, flinging her arms around him again in another, albeit shorter, hug. Unfortunately, she had to pull back in order to avoid sneezing on him.

"Ah, yes, soup. Soup would be good," she agreed, pulling her humidifier closer to her and watching as Sam got up. She nodded to show she'd heard his words, and once he was gone she fell back on her blankets, hugging herself and giggling. She felt like a giddy teenager again, though she couldn't quite place her finger on why. No doubt just the excitement at the prospect of getting to see mountains for the first time in her life, with one of her oldest and dearest friends.

[Sam O'Connor]

Sam laughed out loud, he hadn't thought of that actually, that Eva had been in a bunker. It wasn't necessarily his metaphorical bunker, but a bunker nonetheless. "True, true, there may be hope," he nodded, still wearing an amused smile, "I'm willing to try the cookies, the telekinesis sort of feels like cheating. Besides, the powers of the cookies are so much stronger than my own, they would probably overpower me." He supposed this was the benefit of being brought up by his Grandmother, his baking was on par with his cooking, which meant both were amazing.

"Or just that she hated baths," he chimed in, "but then, I don't suppose we'd need a telepath in order to deduce that." When she asked him how he could be so oblivious, he sniffed and looked away before saying, "very easily apparently. It's not like you get taught in school how to spot these things, I think that's seriously remiss of the education system for teaching us maths when we should be learning how to see when people love us." He looked back at her with a smile. "Sure, sure, I'll keep waiting for that day."

He snorted as he was tackled again, but rolled away as she let out an explosive sneeze. "Close one there," he teased as he clambered off the bed. "Okay, back in a flash." He pulled his arms and a leg up like a cartoon character who was about to speed off in a cloud of smoke, then exited the room.

Sam made his way to the kitchen with a spring in his step. He'd been hoping all those years that he'd meet Eva again, that he could take her to the mountains someday. Out of all his fantasies, that had been the one that he had come back to time and time again, visiting that lake in the mountains, and now he knew they were actually going to get to do it, he could barely contain his excitement. Seeing Eva that ecstatic over going made him positively giddy. He'd never felt like this before, it was entirely wonderful, if a little weird.

The soup didn't take long to make, and he was back in no time with a pot of the stuff, two mugs, and some bread. "Voila," he said, setting the pot down on the desk. He poured them each a cup then clambered back on the bed with the bag of bread. "Bon apetite, Evy."

[Evangeline Irvine]

The door opened again a few minutes later, and Eva shuffled back into a sitting position again, grinning as Sam came over with a pot of soup that smelled--amazing, she was able to breathe again; humidifiers were lovely--absolutely mouthwatering. She watched silently as he set it down on the desk, filling the mugs before coming over to join her on the bed again.

There he went again, calling her Evy. She smiled. Normally, she hated that nickname with a passion. If she remembered correctly, the last time Theo had called her that, she'd nearly taken his head off. And yet, when Sam was the one using it, she didn't mind so much. After all, he was actually her friend. Theo had just been her partner--and a lousy one at that, as she'd reveled in pointing out to him as often as possible.

"Thanks," she smiled, taking the offered mug from him. She took a deep breathe, soaking in the delicious aroma, before actually taking a sip of it. And when she did, it was one of the most heavenly things she'd ever tasted. "No wonder this is Portaferry's best tomato soup," she laughed, taking another, larger sip. Ripping off a piece of bread, she nibbled at it contentedly and snuggled up next to him again.

"This probably wasn't how you were planning to spend your day off, was it?" Eva sighed, glancing at him with a slightly apologetic expression.

[Sam O'Connor]

Sam was in the middle of taking a long sip of the soup when Eva repeated what he'd said before. With a snort, he managed to blow into the mug, a splodge of the soup spraying up onto his nose. He laughed harder, drawing the mug away from his mouth quickly so it didn't go everywhere - he was so ridiculous sometimes. "Does it suit me?" he asked Eva, turning his soup laden nose into the air, "I reckon I probably look like rudolph the red nosed reindeer." Which sort of fit considering it was coming up on Christmas.

When she said that this probably hadn't been how he had intended to spend his day off, he shrugged his shoulders lightly. "To be honest, I didn't really have any grand plans. I was mostly lazing around in my room, doing nothing for once." Crazy stuff was always going on, so a rest seemed like a good idea. "This is better though," he smiled. He would much rather be cuddled up with a sniffly Eva eating soup and laughing than doing most stuff.

Breaking off some bread, he dipped it into his soup and took a bite. So, he may not have originally been serious about 'the best soup in Portaferry', but now he was beginning to believe it. He'd have to open up his own restaurant someday. "So, did you think of anything else you wanted to do while we're able to escape the ship?" he asked, "other than the aformentioned mountain seeing." And mostly likely a paddle out into one of the lakes in an old rowing boat, if he had his way.